roesel ustick
Public Art, Representation, and Questions of Revising the Past

Authors

  • Jenny Roesel Ustick University of Cincinnati

Downloads

DOI:

10.31182/cubic.2022.5.53

Keywords:

public art, gender, race, censorship, murals

Abstract

Operating from the position of an artist with a mature practice in creating public art, this essay chronicles and contextualises the development of a series of works that consider the history, symbolism, interpretation, and evolving understanding of specific historic public artworks. There is a paradox in my development as a muralist: my significant experience while being affiliated with and working on behalf of a prominent community-based non-profit arts organization, where I repeatedly faced constraints upon the content and attitude of the work being created, earned me the notoriety and reputation that facilitates for-profit work that critiques design-by-committee at best, and malignant censorship at worst. Works in the series deal with the intersections of gender and race in the content of public artworks in tones that range from reverent to harshly critical and – in some cases – suggestive of reparative action.

How to Cite

Roesel Ustick, J. (2022). Public Art, Representation, and Questions of Revising the Past. Cubic Journal, 5(5), 94–109. https://doi.org/10.31182/cubic.2022.5.53

Published

2022-12-17

Author Biography

Jenny Roesel Ustick, University of Cincinnati

Jenny Roesel Ustick is associate professor of practice and foundations coordinator in the School of Art at DAAP, University of Cincinnati. She holds an MFA from the same program and a BFA from the Art Academy of Cincinnati. Ustick has become one of the most prominent muralists in her region and has painted around the US. Internationally, she has painted murals in Argentina and Sicily, and continues to expand her reach. Ustick’s solo and collaborative studio works have been exhibited in numerous galleries and museum venues that include the Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft, the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati, the Dayton Art Institute, and the Cincinnati Art Museum. Ustick has contributed essays to The Cincinnati Anthology and Still They Persist: Protest Art from the 2017 Women’s Marches. Her work has been featured in American Quarterly, the Huffington Post, Hyperallergic, and La Sicilia, as well as several local publications.

References

"Statue of Freedom," Architect of the Capitol, accessed June 2020, https://www.aoc.gov/art/other-statues/statue-freedom.

“Pussyhat' knitters join long tradition of crafty activism,” BBC News, accesed June 2020, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38666373.

Bures, Frank, "Richard Florida Can’t Let Go of His Creative Class Theory. His Reputation Depends On It." In Belt Magazine (13 December 2017), accesed June 20, https://beltmag.com/richard-florida-cant-let-go/.

Coutts, Marion, "From the Liberty Cap to the Pussy Hat: A History of Radical Objects.” In The Economist 1843 Magazine (17 October 2018), accessed June 2020, https://www.1843magazine.com/culture/look-closer/from-the-liberty-cap-to-the-pussy-hat-a-history-of-radical-objects.

Florida, Richard. Rise of the Creative Class. New York, NY: Basic Books, 2002.

Florida, Richard. The New Urban Crisis . New York, NY: Basic Books, 2017.

Homer Winslow, The Brush Harrow, 1865. Oil on canvas. 96.0 x 61.0 cm. Harvard Art Museums.

Hurley, Dan. “A Vision of Cincinnati: The Worker Murals of Winold Reiss.” In Queen City Heritage (Summer/Fall 1993): pp. 81–92.

Malanga, Steven. “The Curse of the Creative Class.” In City Journal (Winter 2004).

Robert Kraus, Victory , 1889.

Suarez, Harrod. “Midterm Evaluations, Swing State Aesthetics”. In American Quarterly 72, No. 1 (March 2020): pp. 207–220.

Sussman, Anna Louie. “Richard Florida on Why the Most Creative Cities Are the Most Unequal”. In Artsy (9 May 2017), accesed June 2020, https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-creative-cities-unequal

Thomas Crawford, Statue of Freedom. 1863.